Robert S. Marvin, Ph.D., Director

Dr. Bob Marvin was an undergraduate student and research associate with Mary D. Ainsworth at The Johns Hopkins University. He received his Ph.D. in developmental and clinical psychology from the University of Chicago in 1972. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota he began teaching at the University of Virginia, where he is currently Professor Emeritus in the School of Medicine and Research Professor in the Department of Psychology. He is also Director of the Mary D. Ainsworth Child-Parent Attachment Clinic in Charlottesville, Virginia. Throughout his career, Bob has been active in basic and clinical attachment research, and in intervening with families who have children with chronic medical conditions and/or histories of disrupted early relationships. This work has led him to focus increasingly on developing clinical tools for assessing and intervening with families of foster and adopted children, and with families experiencing divorce or other types of parental separation.

From 1998-2006, Bob was the Principal Investigator on federally-funded projects that developed and tested the Circle of Security® version of Attachment Theory, and The Circle of Security® Intervention protocol. Currently, he is especially active in implementing variations of this Circle of Security framework in developing community-based partnerships among professionals working with families with at-risk children. These include children at risk of removal, foster and adoptive families, children of divorce, families who have children with chronic medical conditions, and parent-child relationship challenges related to trauma. He travels extensively to train these professionals in implementing science-based practices that integrate developmental psychology, clinical psychology, and family systems work.